Less than 24 hours after its $2.675 million settlement with Apple was revealed, Psystar has removed all of its unauthorized machines equipped with Mac OS X for purchase from its online store.

All of Psystar's hardware, including the OpenDuo, Open(Q) and Open(7), which came with Mac OS X preinstalled, are now listed as "Out of Stock" on the company's Web site. On Tuesday, AppleInsider first reported the terms of the multi-million dollar settlement, in which Psystar agreed to pay Apple damages for copyright infringement, breach of contract, and violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Apple, in turn, agreed to not refile claims of trademark infringement, trade dress infringement, trademark dilution, state unfair competition and common law unfair competition.

Psystar's ceased sales amount to a victory 17 months in the making for Apple, which originally sued to stop the "hackintosh" business in July of 2008. But Apple's work is likely not done.

Unsurprisingly, Psystar is still offering its Rebel EFI product -- something the Florida corporation indicated it planned to do through a court filing on Monday. The $50 product allows third-party installation of Mac OS X on unauthorized computers.

Psystar has contended that the court should not grant Apple an injunction against the Rebel EFI product because it was not litigated in the case in a San Francisco court. Rebel EFI, however, is the subject of a separate lawsuit filed in a Florida court by Psystar, against Apple.

The software, revealed in October, allows certain Intel-powered PCs to install Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. In response, Apple has tried to convince the court that Psystar is "trafficking in circumvention devices" that will irreparably harm the Cupertino, Calif., company.

Further issues, including the Rebel EFI product, could be resolved in the separate case filed in a Florida court. There, Psystar has alleged that it is entitled to be able to buy retail copies of Snow Leopard and install them on machines. It has called Apple's tying of Mac OS X to proprietary machines an "anticompetitive" practice.

I'll be curious to see what comes out of the Rebel EFI bit. It's not anti-competitive obviously, as Apple doesn't control the PC market. To be anti-competitive, they would need to use that dominant market position to adversely affect competitors. Something they obviously can't do with the dominance of Windows PC's.

I don't see how Psystar has a snowballs chance in hell. They seem to think they are entitled to do what they please with OS X, without realizing they don't own it. They just license it.

Perhaps they do realize, and they just enjoy wasting taxpayer time and money...

Yeah, AFAIK there is a much higher bar for summary judgements as they preclude the need for a trial. If there was even the slightest question that the judgement was not clear or obvious, the judge would most likely have opted for a full trial.

I'm unsure why people would even buy RebelEFI when you can find the resources to do it yourself extremely easily and for free! Pystar, just begone already. Pay back to Apple, and to the OSX86 community you stole from.

It seems that they sold only 768 machines (or thereabouts). And now they have to pay $2.7 million to settle. Plus lawyer fees.

Actually, half of that 2.7 mil was for lawyers fees. The other half is to settle statutory damages.

I can't see how they believe they can keep selling that "RebelEFI" when they've already admitted to violating the DMCA by using it to sell computers w/ OSX pre-installed. Seems to be the same principle as selling mod-chips for a Playstation or X-box, still violates DMCA.

Seriously, I don’t see any evidence of Psystar having backers, much less ones that are major tech companies with lawyers and something to lose. It looks like a couple of guys with no business or common sense who thought that found a loophole.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Just to pick nits, Psystars were not Mac clones but rather commercially sold "hackintoshes".

Right. And they are still selling that efi
adapter. Weird. Over at insanely mac, osx86, you can get a free script that allows you to install any retail LSD disc. Plus get any updates with worrying your machine will be bricked.
When I used my hack, honestly, the experience was the same.
They evenhl have HCL info for AMD boards.
What excites me are these new chips that apple may get first. 50% less power which means less heat which could meant a very HIGH overclocking so a 3.0 reaches 4."-4.5-.5.0 all on air cooling via the bios. This is why i think it's a great time to make the mac pro the 12/24 cores and release a mid range with the older 8 cores. But if the price wasn't good enough, it would make sense to get a new 12/24 and overclock it and end up with silly benchmarks and a machine that ran all pro apps like it had a second identical node machine, for example in logic or fcp

I've said it before and will say it again. Only adding a few different elements to the mix.*
With Apples pricing, they sort of painted themseleves into a corner. Example mac air thus no netbook due to high price.*

Digidesign, makes high end audio systems.*
Avid can run around $100,000k, pro tools anywhere from $5000 to $50k depending in your needs. A few years ago though, they saw the trend that computers were getting faster and people were not buying pro tools tdm which are basically cards that take the load off the CPU as even high end top 10 artists wrrevrecording at home and mixing only in the studio, so Avid BOUGHT OUT M-AUDIO as this is a pro-Sumer company. Then they bought pinnacle too. *

All the software runs native unless you have say a fx pci card or express slot card with FX (same for video and people were livid apple took it off the 15", in fact most were hoping to see a 13 MacBook pro with express so that could slide in gig back, record shows, ideas.*

Now. With this new chip. This is apples chance to raise the prive a little and realease the 4/8 cores as headlesss mid range. Not only will they get millions of prosumer audio users that make up a bulk of the market. They would get gamers that make more sales than video and music combined. *

*If you have a good, great gaming machine by Apple, you also have a device that will run their Pro Apps and oddly, Apple assumes they will lose money as the Pros, 2~3%, would buy the cheaper alternative, and their right, we would but so woudnt the gamers (who make up more sales then video sales and music sales combined), as well as the millions of ProSumers who don't really have the cash for a server made desktop but do have the talent, not to mention all the studios that had mac pros would also buy these non existent devices for their smaller rooms. In a nutshell, Apple would MAKE money not lose money due to lack of sales but they can't seem to figure that out yet.*

Avid/Digidesing did!!!! They saw people were no longer buying their $$10,000 TDM (processing chips in a card, thus reducing CPU latency which you cannot have in music), and saw computers were getting faster and faster and more core on a single dye were happening, so they purchased M-Audio which relies on the cpu only. In music it's caled native recording vs TDM. In fact, for the mac pro, for those left with the express slot, now only the 17" has it forces yet higher prices on the pro, with an express card, you can purchase something similar that puts all the processing on the card that goes into the express slot. Google. "UAD laptop express" card and you'll see what I mean. Apple could make more money simply by adding an express slot on the iMac. Add in esata and the sales go even higher. *

Anyway, Apple can do it but won't as I said earlier great grahics normally mean it can run pro apps and they don't really want that and rather have you buy the mac pro when in fact they would make so much more anyway.*

Check it out. Let's pretend apple released a $1000 i7 core with a great graphics card, 1000 FSB, normal memory, headless and in the future you could swap the CPU out. *
You would have thousands of gamers buy them.*
You would have millions of musicians buy them and buy their own ram after market, similar to gamers.*
You would have everyone that is tired of windows but has nice HDMI DVI diplays buy them.*
You would have the more semi pro photographer buy them. *
You would have most all semi pro video users buy these.*
And ironically, all the pros apple were afraid they would lose sale to, would buy these instead of the pc rendering farms as well as place them in their smaller studios, so it not a matter of how come, it more like their are misguided somehow. I mean they really only care about the iPhone now, example, One to One and Pro C are used to be one program. Now it's seperated and most of the training used to be pro apps, and is now iLife and $99 each. So why not go ahead and build them. *There is a huge market out there. The only problem I would see is people would want their own video card at new egg or Frys pricing and apple would have to start supporting numerous cards but all the companies are gone and there's only nvidia and ati, so that wouldn't be that big of a deal and it would for sure, put a dent in the hacntosh.

There are millions of users waiting. Just take a page from what digidesign did.*
They would have 20% of the marketshare within a year and to top it off, it would increase the sales of iMacs as business and enterprise started off with these mid range machines. 30% in less than 5 years.

Immean if you think about the gamer or laptop musician, they want stellar graphics and strong CPUs. I think they would give up portability for expansion and power. I just don't see how they will compete with these new low power Chips if theybend up over clocking even half of the speed as that would truley be mac osx insanely mac. Lol.

Actually you wouldn't, most PC games are written specifically for Windows, you see there's this little thing called DirectX.

The problem is Direct3D 10 and Direct3D 9 incomparable with each other so you can't run an old Direct3D 9 game on a Direct3D 10 system. Worse the Xbox 360 is stuck in Direct3D 9 land and only with some programing kludging that makes OpenGL as it worst look simple can you get a Direct3D 10 based game to run on it.

Also in terms of the console market OpenGL not DirectX is king. Even the PS3 which has DirectX ready chips used a form of OpenGL.

Good news. I'm sure if they did some digging they could find someone to pay that settlement.

In the end it doesn't matter if they pay or not. it is in the books that Apple's tying is totally legal, that Psystar is violating DMCA with Rebel and soon it will be in the books that the judgments apply to all current and future versions of Apple's software. that was the real goal for Apple,not any money. if they get it great. if not because they bankrupted Psystar, oh well

In the end it doesn't matter if they pay or not. it is in the books that Apple's tying is totally legal, that Psystar is violating DMCA with Rebel and soon it will be in the books that the judgments apply to all current and future versions of Apple's software. that was the real goal for Apple,not any money. if they get it great. if not because they bankrupted Psystar, oh well

One has to wonder why the osx86 community is left alone.
Makes you wonder. Eveyone knows that like every 2-3 out of 10 users ends up buying a mac. I wonder if that's why. Plus in a way, you have a whole dedicated volunteers essentialy, doing beta testing for all these grapic cards.

You know what would be cool. Is you have your laptop then when you get home, you take off you battery and insert a faster gpu/cpu and ram. Connect it to a larger display and you know have a dedicated workstation.

Supposedly, Psystar's legal team was working on a contingency fee basis.

But why would they do such a thing? Certainly they had to have realized that Psystar's case had about as much chance of winning as Medusa becoming Miss America. (ie pretty much nil).

This can't make the law firm that took on this nonsense look good so why do it? It makes the firm look either incompetent (if they honestly thought that there was a change of winning this mess) or publicity hound which makes them look bad. As the fall and eventual demise of Circuit City and the problems Hyatt is going through have shown the odd adage 'any publicity is good publicity' simply doesn't work.

But why would they do such a thing? Certainly they had to have realized that Psystar's case had about as much chance of winning as Medusa becoming Miss America. (ie pretty much nil).

Beats me, but it happens. You might also ask why they'd take on a client who probably couldn't pay them if they didn't take it on contingency. Either way they risk getting nothing for their trouble. It's not like this is a big, reputable law firm -- it's just a couple of lawyers in Texas. They were probably hoping to get lucky.

Beats me, but it happens. You might also ask why they'd take on a client who probably couldn't pay them if they didn't take it on contingency. Either way they risk getting nothing for their trouble. It's not like this is a big, reputable law firm -- it's just a couple of lawyers in Texas. They were probably hoping to get lucky.

And it may be that their sense of the odds of getting lucky was predicated on an imperfect grasp of precedent and case law.

They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.

One has to wonder why the osx86 community is left alone.
Makes you wonder. Eveyone knows that like every 2-3 out of 10 users ends up buying a mac. I wonder if that's why. Plus in a way, you have a whole dedicated volunteers essentialy, doing beta testing for all these grapic cards.

You know what would be cool. Is you have your laptop then when you get home, you take off you battery and insert a faster gpu/cpu and ram. Connect it to a larger display and you know have a dedicated workstation.

Partly because they would be difficult to find and persecute, and they aren't selling these hacks for profit.

I am aware of both the primary and secondary definitions, so there's no need to go into lengthy semantical digressions.

You are right when you say that Apple isn't going after the open source people if for no other reason than they are not trading on Apple's patents and trademarks. But if they were to go after them, the method they'd use would be based in the law, not on some desire to annoy or humiliate them.

As a point of comparison, a number of years ago Microsoft thought it was in their best interests to denigrate the open source community. Bill Gates made a number of very critical public remarks about open source. That's what persecution looks like -- kind of ridiculous, really.

I am aware of both the primary and secondary definitions, so there's no need to go into lengthy semantical digressions.

You are right when you say that Apple isn't going after the open source people if for no other reason than they are not trading on Apple's patents and trademarks. But if they were to go after them, the method they'd use would be based in the law, not on some desire to annoy or humiliate them.

As a point of comparison, a number of years ago Microsoft thought it was in their best interests to denigrate the open source community. Bill Gates made a number of very critical public remarks about open source. That's what persecution looks like -- kind of ridiculous, really.

I disagree. Look at the Palm Pre's sync issues. Although it's arguable that Apple broke the Palm by accident, after doing so every new release of iTunes, I have to believe that they will not harass them until they get a clue and write their own software, or pay for licensing, all without any direct lawsuits against them.

They could easily do the same to the OSX86 crowd if they wanted. I can only imagine that they don't consider them enough of a problem to warrant attention.

I'm not sure what you are disagreeing with me about. Apple has no obligation nor any reason to support Palm devices in iTunes. It's Palm that has elected to go on a wild goose chase. And yes, Apple could potentially harass OSX86, but in fact they have not.

I'm not sure what you are disagreeing with me about. Apple has no obligation nor any reason to support Palm devices in iTunes. It's Palm that has elected to go on a wild goose chase. And yes, Apple could potentially harass OSX86, but in fact they have not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss

But if they were to go after them, the method they'd use would be based in the law, not on some desire to annoy or humiliate them.

You stated that Apple must resolve things like OSX86 in a court, when that is obviously not the case. They could harass the OSX86 folks just as they do with the Palm folks. That was my only point. Hopefully that clarifies.